BOOK REVIEW:

Year One

by Nora Roberts

CORINA’S REVIEW

If you ever read a book by Nora Roberts – forget everything you think you know about her writing. Year One is the beginning of something new and EXCITING!!!

Year One is the first book in a trilogy that is more complex and layered then anything I ever read by Nora Roberts. Instead of a typical trilogy with each book dedicated to a different couple – Year One is the beginning of an EPIC story that seems to span generations.

Think HIGH fantasy.

The author introduces an amazing cast during a chilling and world changing event. An epic dystopian storyline that fascinates, captivates and truly pulled me in to a point I didn’t want it to stop. Honestly, I hated the closer I got to the end. I did not want it to be done. I needed MORE!!!

As with other high fantasies, it took me a looooong time to connect with the plot as well as figuring out which of the characters were main or supporting cast. It actually took me until 60% to really fall in love with this book, and now I’m incredibly frustrated that I have to wait an entire year for book 2. I would have read hours more.

Year One is as fascinating and as thoroughly captivating as Stephen King’s The Last Stand. An epic fight between good vs evil. In Nora Robert’s version I love the added layer of magical creatures – fairies, elves, sirens, shapeshifter, sorcerers and witches. There are so many characters that I fell in love with. Distinctive voices and unique personalities.

And then came the big SHOCKER!!!!

Wow, I did not see that coming. From there on everything I thought I knew was turned upside down. Nora Roberts took a chance on a new concept and ROCKED it!!! Not everyone is going to like it. But that’s ok. I think it’s more important for an author to be able to try something different, then always follow the same formula. We all sometimes have to color outside the box. It makes for some unique results and Year One is the best example.

I can’t wait to read book 2.

For me Year One was just a sampler of what was to come. I got my feet wet and now I need more. Nora Robert’s epic tale has barely started and there are so many more stories to tell. The anticipation is literally going to drive me nuts. So, if you love the dystopian genre, big and interesting casts, and a story that spans generations – you need to pick this book up and give it a try.

BLURB

It began on New Year’s Eve.

The sickness came on suddenly, and spread quickly. The fear spread even faster. Within weeks, everything people counted on began to fail them. The electrical grid sputtered; law and government collapsed—and more than half of the world’s population was decimated.

Where there had been order, there was now chaos. And as the power of science and technology receded, magic rose up in its place. Some of it is good, like the witchcraft worked by Lana Bingham, practicing in the loft apartment she shares with her lover, Max. Some of it is unimaginably evil, and it can lurk anywhere, around a corner, in fetid tunnels beneath the river—or in the ones you know and love the most.

As word spreads that neither the immune nor the gifted are safe from the authorities who patrol the ravaged streets, and with nothing left to count on but each other, Lana and Max make their way out of a wrecked New York City. At the same time, other travelers are heading west too, into a new frontier. Chuck, a tech genius trying to hack his way through a world gone offline. Arlys, a journalist who has lost her audience but uses pen and paper to record the truth. Fred, her young colleague, possessed of burgeoning abilities and an optimism that seems out of place in this bleak landscape. And Rachel and Jonah, a resourceful doctor and a paramedic who fend off despair with their determination to keep a young mother and three infants in their care alive.

In a world of survivors where every stranger encountered could be either a savage or a savior, none of them knows exactly where they are heading, or why. But a purpose awaits them that will shape their lives and the lives of all those who remain.

Nora Roberts was born in Silver Spring, Maryland, the youngest of five children. After a school career that included some time in Catholic school and the discipline of nuns, she married young and settled in Keedysville, Maryland.

She worked briefly as a legal secretary. “I could type fast but couldn’t spell, I was the worst legal secretary ever,” she says now. After her sons were born she stayed home and tried every craft that came along. A blizzard in February 1979 forced her hand to try another creative outlet. She was snowed in with a three and six year old with no kindergarten respite in sight and a dwindling supply of chocolate.

Born into a family of readers, Nora had never known a time that she wasn’t reading or making up stories. During the now-famous blizzard, she pulled out a pencil and notebook and began to write down one of those stories. It was there that a career was born. Several manuscripts and rejections later, her first book, Irish Thoroughbred, was published by Silhouette in 1981.

Nora met her second husband, Bruce Wilder, when she hired him to build bookshelves. They were married in July 1985. Since that time, they’ve expanded their home, traveled the world and opened a bookstore together.

Through the years, Nora has always been surrounded by men. Not only was she the youngest in her family, but she was also the only girl. She has raised two sons. Having spent her life surrounded by men, Ms. Roberts has a fairly good view of the workings of the male mind, which is a constant delight to her readers. It was, she’s been quoted as saying, a choice between figuring men out or running away screaming.

Nora is a member of several writers groups and has won countless awards from her colleagues and the publishing industry. Recently The New Yorker called her “America’s favorite novelist.”

You’re quite welcome! It did sound like it would be way out of her normal style which is what had my curiosity up, a well known talented author taking a chance on something different is really intriguing.

Intrigued me too. And it’s not like her other trilogies. Otherwise she has her typical amazing cast. Good vs Evil. But knowing who is a main characters and who isn’t was a challenge at first. Let me know when you read it, would love to chat with you about it. 🙂

I never expected Nora Roberts to write a high fantasy book! GASP!!! I’m used to her romances or her suspense series as JD Robb. 60% is a massive amount of time to wait to love a book, eek! I think I would’ve given up long ago lol! Great review <3

i love Nora Roberts’s books. i didn’t mind the way her writing was formulaic, but i admit a change feels appealing. though, i think i’ll wait for the trilogy to be published – all three books, i mean. it’ll depend on how curious i get. great review.

Thank you!!!! And i totally agree with you!!!! I devour her books every year. They are a highlight and not to be missed. But I can see where she as an author would want to shake things up a bit. I also would have suggested, wait until all three books are out. Just thinking about having to wait another two years until the third book is published is driving me nuts.;-)